We do things differently here!
__this is manchester__
BIG PREMIER LEAGUE FOOTBALL CLUBS
Manchester City are one of the biggest clubs in the world with one of the best managers of all time, and Manchester United started football as big business, becoming the first super club in the 1990s as the Premier League grew.
MUSIC
So much music has come out of Manchester over the years, and it continues to inspire some of the finest music the world over.
Think back to The Hollies, Joy Division and New Order, The Smiths, Inspiral Carpets, The Stone Roses, The Happy Mondays, Oasis, and The 1975 and you can see a clear succession that is likely to continue for many years.
The worker bee
The worker bee has been a symbol of Manchester for over 250 years, excellently representing a city that was built from the ground by its hard-working people.
SPLITTING OF THE ATOM
Although not born in Manchester, John Dalton, creator of the Atomic Theory, was an alumnus in the city. Ernest Rutherford also successfully split the atom at Manchester University in 1919, a monumental achievement in the scientific world. Without Rutherford, fission and nuclear energy might never have developed in the way that they have.
THE SUFFRAGETTE MOVEMENT
Where would we be without Emmeline Pankhurst, Moss Side-born and the mother of the Suffragette movement?
Manchester’s Pankhurst led the British suffragette movement in the early 1900s and campaigned tirelessly for the women’s right to vote.
FACTORY RECORDS/THE HACIENDA
At various times Manchester has felt like the centre of the Universe, and the late-70s through to the early 90s was a time when it truly felt that way.
With Tony Wilson championing local bands, Factory Records putting them out to the wider world, and The Hacienda nightclub creating a whole new scene in dance music and ‘baggy’ culture happiness was all around and Manchester was inspiring the world.
ALAN TURING
Alan Turing performed some admirable and world-changing tasks during his life, including breaking the German Enigma code during World War Two and helping defeat Nazi Germany.
He was a mathematician and pioneer of theoretical computer science, inventing the first computer and changing the way we communicate with each other through his work at the University of Manchester.
Without him, you would not be reading this.
TEXTILE INDUSTRY
The industrial revolution changed everything, and Manchester was the beating heart.
The textile industry was one of the biggest components of the industrial revolution and it was through the cotton and textiles trade that Manchester first put itself on the map and became one of the biggest proponents of the fashion world from then to now.
THE SUBMARINE
The submarine was developed in Manchester in 1878, by George Garrett, a vicar turned inventor.
He came up with plans for the Resurgam (his prototype) from an office on Deansgate, and the second model (the Resurgam II) was built and trialled in Wallasey docks in 1879.
THE FOOTBALL LEAGUE
In 1888, regular competitive football devised with the Football League in Manchester. Manchester United Football Club was formed in 1878 as Newton Heath LYR Football Club. The team initially played games against other departments and rail companies at their home ground at North Road, but by 1888 the club had become a founding member of The Combination, a regional football league.
RAILWAYS
In much the same way as canals changed the game, the railways did so on an even grander scale, and with the opening of the first railway line in Manchester in 1830 the world would never be the same again.
Manchester Victoria station is one of the oldest stations in the world to continuously operate since opening, and is still the second largest in the country.
MEAT FREE LIFESTYLE
Vegetarianism and Veganism might sometimes feel like they have only been on the scene as a realistic concept for the past couple of decades, but in fact it was first put forward as a viable lifestyle back in 1815 when Reverend William Cowherd gave sermons in Manchester about the benefits of abstinence from meat.
VIMTO
Vimto is much-loved drink in the UK, and it was invented in Manchester in 1908.
John Nicols was looking to create a health drink to help battle alcohol, but instead created a unique soft drink made of grapes, raspberries, and blackcurrants.
Graphene
The world’s thinnest substance, one atom thick, was isolated in 2004 by two researchers at The University of Manchester, Professor Andre Geim and Professor Kostya Novoselov. This is the story of how that stunning scientific feat came about and why Andre and Kostya won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their pioneering work.
SOCIALISM
We all know how modern-day socialism was developed by Marx and Engels, but you might not know that they first met in Manchester in 1842.
It was from this first meeting that the seeds of The Communist Manifesto were first sown, and the ideology that would shape much of the 20th century began to manifest.
CANALS
The first artificial waterway was opened at the Bridgewater Canal in Manchester in 1761.
It completely revolutionised industry and the potential for transportation across long distances, which at that time were particularly cumbersome and dangerous (especially with larger, awkward loads and materials).
